"'Oh, if you turn not back and bring away the cord, the poor gentlewoman which did give it unto me must needs fall into sore trouble. Oh, for God's sake, turn back!'
"I gave a hasty glance at the prison, where increasing stir of lights was visible, and resolved that to return should be certain ruin to ourselves and to him for whom Mistress Ward had risked her life, and little or no hope in it for her, as it was not possible there should be time to get the cord and then escape, which with best speed now could with difficulty be effected. So I turned a deaf ear to Mr. Watson's pleadings, with an assured conscience she should have wished no otherwise herself; and by God's mercy we made such way before they could put out a boat, landing unseen beyond the next bridge, that we could secretly convey him to the house of a Catholic not far from the river on the other side, where he doth lie concealed. I promise you, sweetheart, we did row hard. Albeit I strove very much last year when I won the boat-match at Richmond, by my troth it was but child's play to last night's racing. Poor Mr. Watson fainted before we landed, and neither of us dared venture to stop from pulling for to assist him. But, God be praised, he is now in a good bed; and I fetched for him at daybreak a leech I know in the Borough, who hath set his broken limbs; and to-night if the weather be not foul, when it gets dark, we will convey him in a boat to a vessel at the river's mouth, which I have retained for to take us to Calais. But I would Mistress Ward was on board of it also."
"Oh, Basil," I exclaimed, "if we can discover where she doth lodge, it would not then be impossible. If we had forecasted this yesterday, she would be saved. Yet she had perhaps refused to tell us."
"Most like she would," he answered; "but if you do hit by any means upon her abode to-day, forthwith despatch a trusty messenger unto me at Mr. Hodgson's, and I promise you, sweetheart, she shall, will she nill she, if I have to use force for it, be carried away to France, and stowed with a good madame I know at Calais."
The housekeeper then came in with bread and meat and beer, which my dear Basil did very gladly partake of, for he had eat nothing since the day before, and was greatly in want of food. I waited on him, forestalling housewifely duties, with so great a contentment in this quiet hour spent in his company that nothing could surpass it. The fire now burned brightly; and whilst he ate, we talked of the time when we should be married and live at Euston, so retired from the busy world without as should be most safe and peaceful in these troublesome times, even as in that silent house we were for a short time shut out from the noisy city, the sounds of which reached without disturbing us. Oh how welcome was that little interval of peace which we then enjoyed! I ween we were both very tired; and when the good housekeeper came in for to fetch away his plate he had fallen asleep, with his head resting on his hands; and I was likewise dozing in a high-backed chair opposite to him. The noise she made awoke me, but not him, who slept most soundly. She smiled, and in a motherly manner moved him to a more comfortable position, and said she would lay a wager on it he had not been abed at all that night.
"Well, I'll warrant you to be a good guesser, Mistress Mason," I answered. "And if you did but know what a hard and a good work he hath been engaged in, methinks you would never tarry in his praise."
"Ah, Mistress Sherwood," she replied, "I have known Master Basil these many years; and a more noble, kindly, generous heart never, I ween, did beat in a man's bosom. He very often came here with his father and his brother when both were striplings; and Master Hubert was the sharpest and some said the most well-behaved of the twain. But beshrew me if I liked not better Master Basil, albeit he was sometimes very troublesome, but not techey or rude as some boys be. I remember it well how I laughed one day when these young masters—methinks this one was no more than five years and the other four—were at play together in this room, and Basil had a new jerkin on, and colored hose for the first time. Hubert wore a kirtle, which displeasured him, for he said folks should take him to be a wench. So he comes to me, half-crying, and says, 'Why hath Baz that fine new suit and me not the same?' 'Because, little sir, he is the eldest,' I said. 'Ah,' quoth the shrewd imp, 'the next time I be born methinketh I will push Baz aside and be the eldest.' If I should live one hundred years I shall never forget it, the little urchin looked so resolved and spiteful."
I smiled somewhat sadly, I ween, but with better cheer when she related how tender a heart Basil had from his infant years toward the poor, taking off his clothes for to give them to the beggars he met, and one day, she said, praying very hard Mrs. Wells for to harbor a strolling man which had complained he had no lodging.
"'Mistress,' quoth he, 'you have many chambers in your house, and he hath not so much as a bed to lie in tonight;' and would not be contented till she had charged a servant to get the fellow a lodging. And me he once abused very roundly in his older years for the same cause. There was one Jack Morris, an old man which worked sometimes in Mr. Wells's stable, but did lie at a cottage out of the town. And one day in winter, when it snowed, Master Basil would have me make this fellow sleep in the house, because he was sick, he said, and he would give him his own bed and lie himself on straw in the stable; and went into so great a passion when I said he should not do so, for that he was a mean person and could not lie in a gentleman's chamber, that my young master cries out, 'Have a care. Mistress Mason, I do not come in the night and shake you out of your own bed, for to give you a taste of the cold floor, which yet is not, I promise you, so cold as the street into which you would turn this poor diseased man.' And then he fell to coaxing of me till I consented for to send a mattress and a warm rug to the stable for this pestilent old man, who I warrant you was not so sick as he did assume to be, but had sufficient cunning for to cozen Master Basil out of his money. Lord bless the lad! I have seen him run out with his dinner in his hand, if he did but see a ragged urchin in the streets, and gift him with it; and then would slug lustily about the house—methinks I do hear him now—
'Dinner, O dinner's a rare good thing
Alike for a beggar, alike for a king.'"